There are so many beautiful refrigerators available these days and it is really easy to become overwhelmed by the choices. Fridges can be as large as a walk-in room (yes, even non-commercial kitchens can have these) and as small as a drawer. However, most households cannot afford, and therefore will not be buying, the custom drawers or the extra-large refrigerators. So, I will focus on the standard refrigerators that you can find in your local home improvement store. Here is a quick rundown of the basic information you need to understand when buying a new refrigerator:
Width: Standard refrigerators come in 3 main widths: 30 inches, 33 inches, and 36 inches. Make sure you check the size of the refrigerator that you are planning to buy before buying it. Most newer kitchens with built-in spaces for refrigerators will have enough room for a 36-inch refrigerator. However, before you pay for one, make sure to measure your space. While the 36-inch fridges are the roomiest, you don’t want to buy a large fridge that can’t fit in your kitchen.
Height: While most standard refrigerators are around 69-70 inches tall, every once in a while, there might be one that is 72 inches. If you currently have a cabinet that is placed above the refrigerator, make sure to measure how far it is from the floor to the bottom edge of the cabinet above it. Usually these above-the-refrigerator cabinets will be placed at 72 inches off the ground, which is high enough for most fridges to fit underneath, but occasionally the cabinet is lower or the fridge is taller. Do yourself a favor and measure it before making your purchase.
Depth: There are two depths that most refrigerators come in, cabinet-depth and standard-depth. A cabinet-depth refrigerator is 24 inches deep, plus 3- 4 inches for the door, for a total of 27- 28 inches. As your cabinets are also 24 inches deep, these fridges will fit smoothly and in line with your cabinets and will look nicely built-in. But these fridges are much shallower than a standard fridge, so you will be trading space for style. A standard fridge will sit at approximately 30 inches deep, plus the door. That is 6 inches deeper than the cabinet-depth ones. A standard-depth refrigerator will fit a lot more food, and might be worth the bulkier look if you need the space.
Cubic Feet: Now here is the trick: You can’t always tell how much room for food there will be inside a fridge based on the exterior measurements. Obviously, a standard-depth, 36-inch refrigerator will have more space than a cabinet-depth. 30-inch refrigerator, However, the way the fridge is built, plus if and where the ice makers are, might change how much the individual fridge can hold. The best way to really know how much food will fit into the fridge is to look at the cubic feet of storage. Every refrigerator lists how many cubic feet they hold. The larger the number, the more you can fit in it. You might be surprised at how widely those numbers will vary, even for fridges with the same exterior sizes.
Ice/Water: Who doesn’t love having filtered water and an ice maker built in to their refrigerator, right? You can get filtered water in the door or inside the fridge or even in a refilling pitcher. You can get 2, 3, or even 4 different styles of ice with dispensers in the door or inside the freezer. Pick whichever of these features you like, but before you buy a fridge with those features, make sure you have a water line that has been run to the fridge to feed the water and ice maker. If your current fridge does not have an ice maker, pull it away from the wall and see if the is a little pipe or connector for water already in the wall. If there isn’t, you will have to either open the wall to run one (which will cost a lot), or you will end up with a non-working water and ice maker feature. And if you do decide to run the water line, make sure they run a cold-water line. A line run from the hot water will destroy your unit (ask me how I know…what a disaster!).
Door Layout: There are lots of options and more every year, but the basic door layouts are Top Freezer, Bottom Freezer, Side-by-Side (fridge and freezer next to each other), and French Door (2 doors to the fridge). These can also be mixed together, for example a French door on the fridge and a bottom freezer, either also with French doors or as a pull-out drawer. The main benefit to the Side-by-Side and the French Door options is that the doors themselves are smaller and swing less further out into the kitchen. The main downfall of a Side-by-Side is that it can be hard to store large platters in, although I have had one that everything fit in, so each fridge might be a little different. All in all, these are mainly a matter of preference, so pick the one you like!
Special Features: Refrigerators nowadays have so many neat features. From fancy types of ice, to Sabbath mode, to extra drawers that can switch from fridge to freezer, to see-through doors, and refilling water pitchers, fridges have so many options and new ones are being added all the time. Look around and compare all of the neat features to see which ones will be useful for you.
My last tip for picking a refrigerator is to actually go to the store and physically look at them. Open them up and see if you like the material, the layout, the features, the lighting. There is so much variety out there, so it is best to see them in person before picking the fridge you will use for the next ten years (hopefully!). And don’t forget to enjoy the shopping process! It is so fun to look at them all! If you have any questions, favorite features, or any horror stories about fridge purchases, don’t forget to share them below.
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